


come on, bartender

by godhelpthegrrrl



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Crying, Friendship, Gen, M/M, also she Knows, and he cries his eyes out and they listen to the magnetic fields, basically boris goes to kotku after theo leaves, kotku's name is katrina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 20:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20606678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godhelpthegrrrl/pseuds/godhelpthegrrrl
Summary: Boris goes to Kotku after Theo leaves, breaks down, and they smoke some cigarettes.





	come on, bartender

**Author's Note:**

> hey um hope this fic is ok might not be. not great at creative writing but... kotku heaven now. hope u all enjoy

Katrina had known her whole relationship with Boris was bullshit from the first time she’d seen him with his friend. Potter, he called him, but his real name was Theo if she was remembering correctly.

Boris looked at Theo as if he hung the stars in the sky. There was a glint in his eye she’d never seen before, not even when she smoked him out in her beat-up 2004 Toyota Corolla. From that moment on, she saw the boy as nothing more than a good friend. Sure, a friend she made out with, but nothing more than that.

Yesterday, Boris had come knocking on her door at the double R with 300 dollars, a Magnetic Fields record in hand, and tears in his eyes. “He’s gone,” Boris sobbed when she let him in, “Potter’s gone.”

And with that, Katrina sat him down on the old, dirty sofa and let him cry to her. She’d never seen him cry before, all she could do was hold his head in her lap and tell him that it’d be alright, they’d meet again, no one could separate those two.

“I should’ve gone with him. He’s all I have.” Boris wept into her tight-covered thigh.

“You have me.” Katrina smiled weakly, she knew it wasn’t the same. No one will be to Boris as his Potter was. Is.

Boris kept his face buried in her leg and grinned despite himself. “Is not the same,” A whimper, “Am sorry.”

She tapped him on the shoulder, “I know, Borya,” and as he slowly looked up at her before she stood, she finally understood who Boris was. Despite everything he’d done, all the drugs and booze and sex and violence, Boris was just a boy. And she, she was just a girl.

Katrina stood on her bony feet and turned towards the table where Boris had left the record before collapsing onto her lap. She took it, put it on the old record player she’d bought herself from the pawnshop when she was 15, and when the first song played she began to laugh. “Do you want a smoke?” she asked through her giggles.

Boris sat up on the couch, shouted a “Please,” despite the two being 8 feet apart, and she took a pack of Marlboros from where they sat in her purse before she toppled down on the couch next to him. “Ah, yes, love of my life!” he immediately laid his feet in her lap, hand raised with two fingers up waiting for a cigarette. She put one cigarette between his fingers, one between her own, and grabbed for the lighter thrown haphazardly on the coffee table. She lit them both, and as she took a drag she looked up into his eyes. Sorrow remained, despite his lopsided grin and declaration of love for her.

She removed the cigarette from her lips, took a deep breath out, and returned his grin despite the pain she could feel radiating off of him. “Love you too, Borya.”

They remained like this for a time, just smoking cigarettes in silence, until a new song played on the record player and Boris put out his cigarette to hold his face in his hands. She heard small sobs but said nothing of it. This one, Katrina didn’t need to know. This was for Theo, all of it.

“_and i could make you rue the day but i could never make you stay…”_

The boy’s sobs only became heavier from then, and as the song faded into the next he gasped out in pain. “God, it was my fucking fault, I should’ve gone with him, I did something, he’s going to hate me, ya kokhayu yoho, fuck.” All Katrina could think to do was take his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers, and mutter small consolations.

“Kotku, am sorry, really, I-“ Boris choked out, and she already knew what was coming.

“It’s okay, babe. I know. I’ve known.” She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

Through his tears, Boris gave a small chuckle. “How? He didn’t even know! Oblivious fuck. God, I kissed him. That was always out of the question. No kisses, no names, act like we never remembered…” he rambled on and on about Potter, about all the things they had done, about how sorry he was to the both of them. “Didn’t know what to do, you see? Went and abandoned him out of selfishness. Left him for months. Now he’s gone forever. And all I did was use you, am so fucking sorry. You’re better than that…”

“Boris, I know. I’ve known since I saw how you looked at him. It’s alright, you’re fine, I’m not hurt,” She said to him and grinned, “I was doing you a favor.”

He let out a laugh, a real one, and reached into the pocket of his dark jeans, “For you, to buy that keyboard. One-sixty. Stole it from Potter’s step-mom.” He put it in her palm, twenty dollar bills all rolled together into a neat cylinder. “Payback for the favor, you know.”

“You don’t have to. I coulda got the money myself-“ Katrina started, and before she could finish Boris cut her off. “For the favor, Kotku. Put up with me for this long. Fuck’s sake, I gave you a fat lip. Take the money. Plus, I have more.”

So, she left the room to tuck the cash into the second drawer of her dresser, and when she came back he was passed out on the couch, body stretched out across the beat up cushions. She walked over and pulled his boots off his feet and turned the lights off before curling up on the opposite end of the couch, quickly lulling herself into sleep.

This morning, she woke up with her feet in Boris’ lap while he nursed what she assumed was a screwdriver.

“Taking the day drinking lightly this morning, Borya?” she laughed, and he passed her the drink with a lazy smile on his face. Katrina took a swig and noticed that Boris had put a new record on.

“_love will be the death of me love is so fickle”_


End file.
